Sound advice needed....... see what I did there?

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****WARNING***** Novice asking questions here!

Now that is out of the way.
I will be working in a 220-380 seat venue (2 spaces) and would like some advice on sound set up.
For musicals where there is a live orchestra that does not fit in the performance space would it be best to mix the orchestra on a sub board and then take the output feed back to the main board for level control to FOH?
There would be about a dozen musicians with a range of instruments. The orchestra room would be upstairs and quite a distance from the house.
I think I would need to have a monitor send from the sub to the main then form the main to the monitors on stage and then also a send to monitors in the orchestra room so they could hear what was going on on stage.
Lots of back and forward signals here. I know the FOH mixer is a Midas M32R if that is any help but not sure what else is available.
Go easy on me. Just learning how stuff works.
Regards
Geoff
 
I don't see the need for a second console, especially when that would require a control room and studio monitors to achieve a decent mix. I would not try doing a music mix on headphones because it does not translate well. As long as the M32 has enough capacity to mix everything, I would simply put an I/O box in the orchestra studio and run a shielded, cat 5e cable to it. Max cable length is 100 meters, and there are repeaters to double it.

If you don't have the I/O box, consider buying a Behringer S16 or S32 at half the cost of the equivalent Midas. Anything compatible with an X32 is fully compatible with an M32. In theory, the Midas preamps are slightly better, but the differences are subtle and hard to justify the cost. I would think X32/M32 stuff is easy to rent, as well.

The orchestra director will probably need good video of the stage, and the actors may need video of the director. I'll won't go into video latency and video extenders here. Video isn't as easy now as it was in the days of CRT screens.
 
Ok thanks. Like I said I have lots to learn and have been spending quite a bit of time on the lights of late but the opportunity is arising for me to spread my wings a little. Standby for more questions. Hopefully intelligent ones and not silly ones.
I think there is an I/O box somewhere in the venue the desk is currently using a traditional snake for the first 16ch.
As for the video feed we are still using crt in one venue I frequent. but what will we do when it finally gives up the ghost?
 
You'll also need to be sure the orchestra has a submix audio feed of the actors vocal mics and an optional submix feed of the mains.
 
I would start by having a long talk with the production team about if they REALLY need the live orchestra. This is hard to setup when the orchestra is just on the other side of the wall of the theater. If it's really more than 100 meters to where the orchestra will be located you are going to have endless issues trying to make this work. Focus on the video question. How do the performers cue off the conductor if they can't see him. How does the conductor cue off the performers if he can't see them? If it's a distance that far you are going to have all kinds of latency issues.

My vote is do a nice recording session with the orchestra and play it back for performance. If they aren't visible in the space everyone is going to think it's a recording anyway.
 
I would start by having a long talk with the production team about if they REALLY need the live orchestra. This is hard to setup when the orchestra is just on the other side of the wall of the theater. If it's really more than 100 meters to where the orchestra will be located you are going to have endless issues trying to make this work. Focus on the video question. How do the performers cue off the conductor if they can't see him. How does the conductor cue off the performers if he can't see them? If it's a distance that far you are going to have all kinds of latency issues.

My vote is do a nice recording session with the orchestra and play it back for performance. If they aren't visible in the space everyone is going to think it's a recording anyway.
All good questions and points here. One point is that I didn't say 100m that was someone else but the point is that they may be removed from the space and that could cause more hassle than it is worth.
Another question for everyone is on most of the training videos I have watched drums are placed on the first number of faders followed by the other instruments and then finally vocals. Is this the norm? In the past I have set up the other way around. Is there a reason for the way it is done or is it personal preference or that's just the way we do it?
Thanks again
Geoff
 
All good questions and points here. One point is that I didn't say 100m that was someone else but the point is that they may be removed from the space and that could cause more hassle than it is worth.
Another question for everyone is on most of the training videos I have watched drums are placed on the first number of faders followed by the other instruments and then finally vocals. Is this the norm? In the past I have set up the other way around. Is there a reason for the way it is done or is it personal preference or that's just the way we do it?
Thanks again
Geoff
I say it's your mixer so lay it out in the way that is most logical to you.

The 100m is a typical transmission limit. Once you go beyond that you are probably going to have to start dealing with repeaters and inline amplifiers and things like that.... things you really don't want to deal with as they will add a lot of expense and complications.
 
George,

I apologize if this is an obvious question or even an irrelevant question - I don't know your background or the specific context. I'm sure you've thought of all this but I thought I'd ask anyway.

May I ask the orchestration and instrumentation of said orchestra? And what is the genre' of music?

Especially: will this be an all-acoustic instrumental ensemble, or will there be electric instruments (bass, guitar, keyboards) and/or pop/rock miked drums?

One thought is, if it's an all acoustic ensemble of strings and winds and percussion, in an orchestra room with reasonably good acoustics - and an ensemble that has a conductor and musicians good enough to mostly manage their own balance in that isolated room, then you may be able to get away with a main pair of small diaphragm condensers strategically placed - over the conductor's head and back a little ways, perhaps with a spot mic or two. That could make a big difference for your time & effort, setup and mix to manage.

If that approach doesn't work for me then I discover that I tend to spot mic most or all instruments - sometimes by section and then decide what minimal I can get by with, the rest of the mics become available if I need them but are off or down in the mix.

I've worked on productions where the drummer insisted on miking the entire kit - 9 to 11 mics, and it wasn't even an appropriate music genre' for that - maybe drum miking is not needed or it could be done with less - kick, snare and overheads.
 
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George,

May I ask the orchestration and instrumentation of said orchestra? And what is the genre' of music?
It could be a mix of anything. most of the time we have Keys, base and electric guitars, violins, flutes, clarinet, sax, drums and other percussion. It just depends on what the MD needs for the shows.
I do like the overhead mic idea but I don't think it will cut it.
Thanks for your suggestion
Geoff
 
Another question for everyone is on most of the training videos I have watched drums are placed on the first number of faders followed by the other instruments and then finally vocals. Is this the norm? In the past I have set up the other way around. Is there a reason for the way it is done or is it personal preference or that's just the way we do it?
Thanks again
Geoff

I've done a fair amount of mixing of large groups on an X32 Compact, which has the same number of faders as your M32R. You'll need to think strategically as you lay out the console. It has four layers of eight input channels, and two layers can be on the 16 faders at a time. Doing large jobs on the compact works, but it is a bit trickier than on the full size console.

You'll want things that frequently need adjusting together on the same layer. For example, I try to keep the rhythm section: drums, bass, piano, guitar, on a layer. Vocal or actor mics on a layer. Horns on a layer, etc. It doesn't always work out as neatly as I would like, especially if the console is full.

DCAs are another useful tool. Sometimes, having one input layer and the DCA layer up can do most of what you need to do without playing fader pinball. Other times it is easier to keep two input layers on the faders.
 
Ah. My apologies, I might have misread your question as I thought you were talking about a singular show.

Good chance IMHO you could end up with 16 channels just for a band.

Do you expect to use wireless mics? How many?
 
Good to know. Considering, it might not be the worst idea in the world to split the orchestra mix out to a dedicated submixer then - maybe other folks have different opinions, I can think of a few ways it could be done....
 
Kind of hard to give specific advice but I'll say this: my approach as sound designer/operator is to make my life as simple as possible. Yep, it's all about MEEEE!!!! j/k

As you seem to be looking at creating a generic way of accommodating a variety of shows - from traditional musicals to more contemporary 'rock' type shows. They need different approaches and whatever you do, you can be fairly certain the 2 shows from now will be a situation you could have never foreseen.

For a musical 32 channels can be just right or half of what you need. As you point out the score and MD will determine the orchestra composition and to a certain extent, the number of wireless body mics needed. A submix of the orchestra may be necessary. If you are creating infrastructure that will remain in place I think your producer/venue would benefit from outside consultation.

Remote orchestra? Digital video latency IS a factor. One frame of video is ~30ms. Video is processed mostly in full frames. See where I'm going with this? Also there is some internal processing latency in the video display itself although usually on the order of 5-12ms. In general you want as few devices/as little processing as possible between camera and display.

Audio monitoring and signal routing is where there might be some good news. If the orchestra has its own console they can create their own monitor mixes (the M32/X32 have UltraNet for that, and it's rather powerful for being fairly inexpensive) but remember you'll need to send a vocal stem mix back to the orchestra, too. You'll also need an orchestra mix for stage foldback as well, and consider the foldback mix *may* need to change with every song/singer/orchestration. How will you accomplish that if you get, say, 4 stems from the orchestra mixer? Thinks to think about... The signal routing capabilities in the M32/X32 can be sophisticated when you consider AES50 is 48 channels and there are 2 AES50 connections. Those other 12 per AES50 line? Accessible via the ADAT i/o on the S/DL series snake boxes. The Behringer ADA8000 (or its current model #) is a way to get the ADAT to analog; there's a more $$ Klark Teknik model as well...

With the M32R you can have 2 banks of 8 active faders and you can select which groups of 8 - press the selection buttons simultaneously. The thing you can't do is control which side of the surface each group appears on... but you could have your 8 DCA groups and a bank of 8 inputs, allowing you typical DCA mixing plus access to chorus inputs that might have a couple of quick spoken words or feature moment in a song.

Let us know how you progress with your plans!
 
Kind of hard to give specific advice but I'll say this: my approach as sound designer/operator is to make my life as simple as possible. Yep, it's all about MEEEE!!!! j/k

Let us know how you progress with your plans!
Thanks Tim. At this stage it is all theoretical because it has not happened yet but it may crop up in the future.
I agree that the KISS method and it is all about me theory is good. Simple systems that work are good systems.
I am trying to gather information for my memory bank to help solve problems as they arise. For now I will keep my main reason for this information gathering To myself because it is all about MEEEE!!!! But I hope to tell more soon.
Regards
Geoff
 
Video isn't as easy now as it was in the days of CRT screens.
I'd argue that video is exactly as easy now as it was in the days of CRT screens and scanned CCD analog cameras. It's just quite a bit harder to find those screens and cameras.

Seriously though, look into your video options carefully. A high quality video camera (maybe your local TV stations have some old ones hanging around from when they moved to HD) with analog output feeding a high quality analog input on a CRT will give you the least latency (you can add distribution amplifiers to your heart's content). (HD)SDI directly from a professional camera into a professional display that runs natively at that resolution will come close. Anything more complicated than that is asking for delays on the order of at least 1/15 of a second, likely more. A six frame delay (example, with good quality hardware: capture buffer, conversion from HDMI to SDI, SDI back to HDMI, display buffer) is 200ms (1/5 s) or almost an eigth note at 120 bpm and that only accounts for one direction.
 

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